The NFB is committed to respecting your privacy

We use cookies to ensure that our site works efficiently, as well as for advertising purposes.

If you do not wish to have your information used in this way, you can modify your browser settings before continuing your visit.

Learn more
Check Out Seances, Guy Maddin’s Latest Interactive Cinema Experiment

Check Out Seances, Guy Maddin’s Latest Interactive Cinema Experiment

Check Out Seances, Guy Maddin’s Latest Interactive Cinema Experiment

Our brand-new interactive project Seances is enjoying its double premiere today, launching both at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it will be part of the cutting-edge Storyscape program, and right here online at NFB.ca.

Explore Seances

 

Seances is a curious project, born out of the curious mind of renowned NFB collaborator Guy Maddin (Night Mayor), one of the world’s foremost outré director.

Maddin, who has long been intrigued by gaps in film history, was inspired by the fact that 80% of films from the silent era have been lost.

What were these films like? What would it be like to be the last person to ever have watched them?

The idea then came to create an online film “machine”  that would churn out films, only to destroy them after their first viewing. Now you see it; now you don’t.

The films, each different, only exist in the moment. They can’t be paused, nor shared. The moment it is launched, a film has just one chance to be seen before it disappears into eternity.

SEANCES_2

So how does it work? Using data-driven storytelling wizardry (we’re talking cloud computing and algorithms, courtesy of Nickel Media), Seances‘s “machine” assembles various film parts to create these unique, single-use films.

The raw materials stem from elaborate shoots Maddin conducted on the theme of the seance, occult meetings where people try to communicate with the spirits of the dead. Roy Dupuis, Charlotte Rampling, Mathieu Amalric, Geraldine Chaplin and dozens of others participate in this boundary-pushing project.

RAMPLING

Photo: Charlotte Rampling.

Check out the project’s trailer below:

Add a new comment
  1. Impossible d’accéder via l’hyperlien Explore Seances
    f

    — Renée Bourgault,
  2. Hello!Does anybody know the title of the film with Charlotte Rampling?

    — Liane,
  3. hi there. seances not working for me. anything I need to do?

    — adam,

Write your comment here